Lawmakers push buffer zone that would kill LNG project

Thursday

Jan 31, 2008 at 12:25 AM

BOSTON — Fall River Mayor Robert Correia says his cash-strapped city will spend whatever it takes to prevent construction of a liquefied natural gas terminal on their shore, while the company pushing the plan said it may ultimately take its case to court.

KEN MAGUIRE

BOSTON — Fall River Mayor Robert Correia says his cash-strapped city will spend whatever it takes to prevent construction of a liquefied natural gas terminal on their shore, while the company pushing the plan said it may ultimately take its case to court.

Both sides were represented Wednesday at a Statehouse hearing on legislation mandating that a new terminal be built nearly one mile from residential areas, in hopes of stopping an LNG terminal proposed by Weaver's Cove Energy, owned by Hess LNG.

"It puts my community and the people in my community at undue, unfair risk," said Correia, who recently resigned as a state representative.

Fall River has spent $1.4 million fighting the project, he said.

"Money is tight, and you know that," he told the Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee. "But if I have to appropriate more money to stop this project, I intend to do that."

Various government studies have found that fire from a terrorism attack against a tanker carrying LNG could ignite so fiercely it would burn people one mile away.

The Weaver's Cove LNG terminal was approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 2005 and has the support of local unions. Company officials argue the project was badly needed to meet the region's growing energy demands.

It met fierce opposition in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which borders the route the tankers would have to take to reach the Fall River site.

Weaver's Cove spokesman James Grasso said in an interview before his testimony Wednesday that LNG facilities in the United States have been proven safe. He also said the bill in question, sponsored by Fall River Rep. David Sullivan, wouldn't pass constitutional muster.

"The legislation would attempt to direct the federal government over how it can control its waterways and the siting of LNG facilities," Grasso said. "If passed, this bill would most likely be deemed unconstitutional by the courts, since both activities, marine and LNG siting, are subject to regulation by the federal government. The state cannot impose federal laws."

Grasso said the $250 million project would create up to 500 construction jobs for at least three years of construction.

As is, Weaver's Cove Energy already faces a tough battle. The Coast Guard has already ruled that the Taunton River approaching the would-be site of the terminal is unsafe for navigation by massive LNG tankers.

But Grasso said the company is appealing to the next level inside the Coast Guard, adding that the courts may ultimately be their choice "based on the interstate commerce clause and based on the jurisdiction of the various agencies."

Fall River resident Margaret Charkowski attended the hearing wearing an orange T-shirt that said 'Boycott Hess.'

"Fall River is my identity. I love Fall River, it's a great town," said Charkowski, who works in juvenile probation of the state trial court system. "If that (terminal) were to be constructed on our shores, there goes Fall River. There goes the waterfront, there goes any economic future. Nobody's going to want to build or live down there, I certainly wouldn't. It's the wrong spot, it doesn't belong there."

Tanker safety also has become a Boston-area concern in part because of an LNG terminal at Everett in Boston Harbor. The terminal is one of five such facilities operating in the U.S., and the only one in a densely populated area.

Liquefied natural gas, or LNG, is chilled to 260 degrees below zero, reducing its volume so it can be transported in a tanker. Once brought ashore it is warmed so that it again becomes natural gas.

The Energy Department forecasts that LNG imports will grow by more than 400 percent by 2015. Nationwide, federal regulators have approved construction of at least 11 new facilities, and dozens more have been proposed.

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